feed

Are you dying to know how the zombie apocalypse will impact the world of blogging? NO?! Tough luck, because this is what this book is about. Complete with pages upon pages of completely idiotic jargon and contradictory descriptions, technical explanations that fail to be even slightly believable, and, most sadly, completely dated, less than half a decade after publication. There's nothing sadder than a book that tries to describe the future and fails so miserably an envisioning even next year. Half a decade is generous - I think it was equally dated already in 2012. How this book was a bestseller is beyond me, and how it could go on to become a trilogy is unfathomable.

This book has no right being 600 pages long. It could have easily lost about 200 pages (mostly off of the first third of the book, almost all dealing with the faux technicalities of the ridiculous vision of blogging, and easily replaced with a simple story of a journalist), and then it might - might - have been a three star book. There's a plot there. It's OK. Not brilliant, at times stale, and the denouement is tepid at best, but overall it would've been OK if it wasn't drowned in this utterly harebrained blogging framework.

Not that the storytelling itself is good. There is so much telling instead of showing, and an agonizing amount of expository dialogue -- amazingly, at some points even Grant herself recognizes that there is no reasonable reason for the characters to be saying what they're saying, because obviously they all know the fact being stated already: "'They only cut and save when there's sound being received,' said Shaun unnecessarily. We all knew how [they] worked." That's an actual quote, swear to god. At other times characters go on and on and on about not having time to talk right now. It's beyond ridiculous.

At one point the story, which is told in the first person, switches to the perspective of another character. Remarkably, if the story didn't tell you this had happened, you couldn't tell. The tone and the voice stays exactly the same. The author is completely unable to differentiate the voices of her characters. Which is not surprising, given how little soul they have to begin with.

So, a half-decent plot, told with little skill and mired in a swamp of needless and unbelievable (as in, I didn't believe it for a second) technicalities, over 600 pages. "Was it worth it?", the book asks again and again about the events as they came to a close. And I fully concur with its answer: no. No it was not.

Edit: In retrospect downgrading to 3. I just didn't like it that much.

3.5 stars, really. I missed the announcement that zombie apocalypse is its own genre now, but apparently it is. So many games and books dealing with it. Feed came with a lot of praise from friends, so I was looking forward to something special. This book remained below expectations, unfortunately, even though overall it was a good read. It just wasn't as awesome as I had thought it would be.

The story starts in 2039, long after the Rising, when a virus called Kellis-Amberlee infected the world population and makes people rise as zombies after their death, ready to shamble forward looking for brains to eat or people to infect to join their moaning packs of doom. The world of Feed is one where social media and blogging are more important than our traditional news media, and their blogs and video casts have replaced television and newspaper coverage. Almost all of the story is told from the viewpoint of George Mason, a female news blogger who's ready to make it big with her team of three when they receive an invitation to follow the presidential campaign of a rising Republican senator. First thrilled by the opportunity, accidents involving zombies haunt the campaign, leading to the team being in danger for their lives as they dig up news that others want hid.

I love a good conspiracy story, I really do, and the last quarter of the book is fast-paced, exciting and full of interesting turns. Unfortunately, it takes far too long for the action to get started. Instead the early parts feel slow as molasses, boring politics and lots of information about the world of social media and blogging. It felt like reading John Grisham, and I hate reading John Grisham. The characters didn't click for me, and I am still weirded out by the weird relationship vibes I got from George and her adopted brother Shaun. That's weird on the same scale as 'Deb loves Dexter' for any who watch that show.

TLDR: too slow story about social media and American politics in a world after the zombie apocalypse has happened. Picks up greatly in the last quarter to barely squeeze in for a 4 star rating. Just barely.